Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Howmore, July 2017

My eBook on the Hebrides is almost completed.

Fortune telling

Do the lines on your hand change? I don't think so. If not and one's palm was read before, what would a second reading show? My fate and my future is truly in the hand, in my hand, to tell me my future and move me into it. Take charge of your life, its totally in your hands!

Thursday, October 19, 2017

Castlebay, Isle of Barra

The Outer Hebrides is a chain of hundreds of islands in the far flung Western corner of Scotland with the west side facing the Atlantic ocean and the east side, the Minch sea. The crashing waves of the Atlantic ocean carves a very jagged landscape into the islands and also creates a landscape unlike any other in the world. Only a few of these islands are inhabited and the total population of the whole chain does not exceed 30,000, it wavers depending the influx of new people and the outflow of the locals who seek more lucrative employment in the bigger cities of the mainland Scotland. The number of visitors have been increasing steadily. So more work catering to visitors are now available and has managed to keep more young people at home. One can go from South to North or North to South to explore these islands, they run about in a straight line, from North to South. Castlebay in the South is a very popular entry point. One can take the 5 hour ferry in from Oban in the mainland or fly in from Glasgow. I was at Castlebay airport one morning to wait for the 10am arrival of the flight from Glasgow. The runway is the beach at Cockle beach. (in between flights one can rake for cockles?) I made sure I had a good vantage point to snap some photos, I wanted to take the sand, the plane and the Machair and frame them all in one. This was the result. Many people do turn out to watch this on the mornings that the flight comes in.

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

The Machair of the Outer Hebrides

The Outer Hebrides is a chain of islands in the far Western corner of Scotland. Few people even know they exists and only recently did Guidebooks gave it a blurb on their pages. It is a chain of some 500 island which only 17 are inhabited by a very hardy people. Today it is easier to visit because of air, ferry and road links. The Western coastline has some of the world's loveliest shell sand beaches and one is almost alone in most of them. It is the Machair that drew me to the Outer Hebrides, these grasslands which in Summer gives this incredible display of wild flowers much like a colorful Persian carpet. Less people mean less land given up for cultivation and grazing, thus leaving wide tracts to be Machair.